Based on a True Story and the Comedy of Death
The moral case for laughing at death.
Author’s Note: Season 2 of the show comes out tomorrow.
Life is a funny thing.
You spend your whole life growing and changing and becoming what you're going to be. Only for you to die and for all of it to be wasted. For some people, this feels like a waste and understandably so. This makes them want to bring death to people faster than it would eventually happen for them. We call bringing someone's death to them earlier murder. Killing someone is considered a bad thing by most people. While other people become obsessed with those who kill others. They feed on each other to some extent and need the other to continue for themselves to do what they're doing. It ends up being a vicious cycle where the more people get murdered the more obsessed people become by it and that just drives people to do more killing. All of it is ridiculous.
People will laugh at anything, including death. Especially if the way they die is weird and unusual. The more weird the better. Finding weird ways to kill people is something that those who murder will often look for. Sometimes it's a compulsion where they just can't help but do it a certain way, but other times it's about making sure that what they do is remembered enough to be obsessed over. In that way, they can become known for it despite the fact that because murdering people will get you locked up, you can't really show your face to anyone or help them know your name. What they can see in you is the way in which you murder people. It's a strange kind of legacy to leave, but there are people who like to do it.
Being able to laugh at something as powerful as death gives you a certain amount of power over it. We can't stop death from happening but at the very least we can laugh in the face of it. Try to limit how much we feel and think about the serious nature of it all. Ultimately, it's the only kind of power we can have over death. It's part of why people try and make funerals into happy events with laughter and insanity.
Based on a True Story is fundamentally about the ability to laugh at death. Ava and Nathan Bartlett, as played brilliantly by Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina, don't have much in their lives. Nothing about what they had planned has worked out. Enough that they're willing to go to extreme lengths to find a way out of their situation. This includes deciding that when they discover the possibility that someone they know is a serial killer with a fair amount of media attention, their first instinct isn't necessarily to turn the murderer in. They decide that what they want is to take advantage of the millions of people who are obsessed with serial killers and death that they are willing to spend money talking about and hoping to meet a serial killer by creating a podcast with their friend.
There's something deeply funny about how they handle it and it gives you a reason to laugh at it as well.
Do yourself a favour and explore the comedy of death by checking out Based on a True Story when you can.
You can watch Based on a True Story at Peacock in the United States as well as GlobalTV and W Network in Canada.
Up Next:
Working around death every day, humor becomes the coping mechanism for many like me. When it’s part of your job, there is no looking away. So you have to find solace any way you can. It just so happens that laughter is often the best therapy around.